Archive for 2013
2013 Great North River Tugboat Race
Maritime Sunday returns with a Tugboat Race.
– photos by Mitch Waxman
For this week’s Maritime Sunday, what I saw last week at the Great North River Tugboat Race.
Project Firebox 87
An ongoing catalog of New York’s endangered Fireboxes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Found at the great divide of 21st street, this sentinel has seen better days. Bent and warped by duty, it stands at one of the crossroads between the many Astorias, a signpost signaling the transition from the venerable past to the gauche present. Like all of its kind, it waits for the proverbial “now” rather than musing on “then” nor “someday.”
unpeopled and illimitable
A visit to the center of the universe.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Times Square, I believe, is likely not just the former physical location of the Garden of Eden but is possibly the exact location where the Big Bang happened (might have been herald square- too close to call). All of reality unfolded out from this spot, when a super massive particle achieved its potential, birthing stars and galaxies and the night sky. Then the area laid relatively fallow for a few billion decades until NYC came along. I have no scientific proof to back this statement up, but it feels kind of right, and in 21st century America belief or a hunch is all you need to claim a belief or statement as a scientific fact.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Magical thinking- “god is on our side” or “don’t worry, it’ll all work out in the end”- is something we are all guilty of at one time or another. It is important, as Americans, that we don’t imagine ourselves as having limitations or being ready to acknowledge any sort of harsh reality. Times Square is, and always has been, all about harsh reality. For generations, it represented the failures of NYC with its open air drug dealing, prostitutes, and unpoliceable violent activity. Today it represents the takeover of the American city by international entertainment franchisees.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What I can describe to you however, is that the underbelly is still present in Times Square- lurking around the service entrances and alleys and sleeping on nearby piers. You don’t see it during the cacophony of the day and evening, lit harshly by neon and led signage, but shamble about the place during the off hours and you’ll soon discover that the old Times Square never went away. Its still here, in this spot where a female Australopithecine bit into an apple and damned us all.
tightly packed
Just a short one today, got to catch a cab.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An uncanny valley of off duty cabs, called Skillman Avenue in Queens.
some assumption
If you smell something, say something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over the years, your humble narrator has presented glowing reports on the progress and practices of the NYC DEP at their titan Newtown Creek Waste Water Treatment plant found in Brooklyn’s DUGABO (Down Under the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge Onramp). Allusions have been made to one of the local community groups, the Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee, which has been waging a non stop dialogue with the agency for better than a decade.
This dialogue has played a critical role in shaping the construction process and procedures followed by DEP, and has created a venue wherein local concerns can be addressed and communicated directly to the otherwise opaque bureaucracy which typifies the governmental agencies of the City of Greater New York.
from nyc.gov
“The Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee is pleased with DEP’s progress at transforming the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant and adjacent waterfront into a Greenpoint destination,” said Irene Klementowicz, co-chair of the committee. “The plant continues to be an exciting model of the benefits of community-city collaboration, one that includes a shared vision of an aesthetic integration of the plant into the neighborhood. In a trend that started with the Nature Walk, the Visitor Center is the latest example of these efforts and one that will benefit residents citywide as it provides lessons about the importance of municipal infrastructure and environment. DEP’s commitment to continue to reduce odors and expand waterfront access and green space around the plant are further examples of our partnership efforts. The committee looks forward to continuing to work with DEP.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The DEP has taken a stance wherein they wish to minimize the impact that the gargantuan sewer plant has on surrounding neighborhoods, and NCMC has served as ombudsman and advocate for the affected. Accordingly, odor control systems such as those pictured above are an integral part of the plant. Problem is, these systems don’t always function correctly.
If you’ve found yourself walking or biking over the GPA Bridge when you suddenly experienced a withering blast of stink in the neighborhood of Greenpoint Avenue at Kingsland, you already know this.
from water-technology.net
With a rated capacity of 1.2 million cubic metres a day, this is New York City’s largest wastewater pump station and serves an area of 4,162 acres of land, fed by 180 miles of sewers. The upgrade programme involved increasing the station’s capacity to 1.5 million cubic metres a day and increasing the static lift necessary to match the higher hydraulic profile of the upgraded Newtown Creek plant.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The problem NCMC is concerned with (I’ve been attending their meetings as an observer for a few years now. Observer, as I live in Queens) is that the smells aren’t being reported to the 311 system by the affected residents of the surrounding neighborhoods. In the data driven climate of the Bloomberg era, an alien spacecraft landing in Central Park wouldn’t be responded to without some 311 activity, so according to the DEP- they’ve got the smells problem licked because of the lack of complaints.
Brooklynites failing to complain?
A humble narrator asks other Greenpoint bloggers to help spread the word to affected locals who might be wondering what that funky scent on the breeze is, and “if you smell something, say something” and call 311. It is the god given right of every New Yorker to complain to the Government until you’re blue in the face, which is far better than turning blue because of the smell of sewage.
from wikipedia
In New York City, 3-1-1 is used by city officials as one of several sources of measurement and information about the performance of city services. Important dates in the history of New York’s 3-1-1 service include December 20, 2005, when it received its record high of 240,000 calls, due to the first day of the 2005 New York City transit strike, and June 20, 2007, when it received its 50 millionth call.
The Newtown Pentacle 